She might be good. Great, even. She might be the one. Perhaps Jocelyn is the hurdle I must leap to reach the ultimate goal, but I doubt it. Even the thought of her—the potential of her—it grates on my conscience. This isn’t fair to her. Or to me.
I pull out my phone while I wait, surprised to find a text from Joss.
How are the ducks today?
Seriously? Classic Jocelyn, ignoring it all.
I didn’t see them today sadly
How did you survive??
There’s always tomorrow.
Titty
Ha. At least that’s still capable of making me smile. But I don’t know what to say, so I set the phone down and stare at the text stream. The three dots pop up and disappear six times before she says anything else.
Asher. Do you have a sec? Can we talk?
With a twist of my stomach, my appetite disappears. I shove my plate away. Part of me wants to shut her down. The other is aching to know what she’d say. How does she possibly expect to fix the broken pieces?
Never should have admitted to loving her. Silent suffering would’ve been better than this excruciating awkwardness. I don’t know how to be around her anymore.
Can’t. I’m not alone.
Oh? Who you with?
My thumb hovers over the screen. Should I admit the truth? She didn’t tell me about her date last night. Clearly didn’t want me to know about it. Indecision has me swiping out of the messaging app altogether. Instead, I slide down my notifications and scroll through useless information from Starbucks and Amazon and Google, clearing it from my screen. A MyRadar notification from yesterday pauses me.
Tropical Storm Franklin forms in Caribbean.
I tap on it and read through the article. The storm is east of the Yucatan Peninsula, but we’re at the extreme edge of the cone of uncertainty.
Meh.
Gabriela returns to her seat, so I pocket the phone. “You want to get out of here?” she asks.
“Absolutely.”
We flag down the server, and when he hands the check to me, Gabriela extends her hand, palm up. “I’m the one who asked you out. Give me that.”
A laugh bursts from me. “What? No. I’m paying for your dinner, Gabriela.”
“Give it to me! You’re adhering to antiquated gender norms that don’t—”
“You’re a resident. You make like two cents an hour. Let me pay for your damn French fries.”
She tries to subdue that cute smile—pinches her lips, scrunches her nose—but it breaks out anyway. “I ate ramen for dinner six days in a row.”
“Exactly.” I hand off the check with my credit card and shake my head at her. “Gender norms? Really?”
With a contrite smile, she raises her fists and gives them a weak shake. “Down with the patriarchy.”
I rest my head on my fist and give way to laughter. “I like you.”
“Yeah.” She glances down at the table between us. “As a friend, right?”
I pull in a deep breath and nod. “Yeah. Probably. For now.”
